On the Next Go Round
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Undetermined future fic: Byakuya meets someone familiar.


**Title:** On the Next Go Round  
**Author:** Celeste  
**Universe:** Bleach  
**Theme/Topic:** N/A  
**Rating:** G  
**Pairing:** Byakuya+Hisana (sort of), light, background IchigoxRukia  
**Spoilers:** For the Soul Society Arc  
**Word Count: **1,549  
**Time:** 21 mins  
**Summary:** Undetermined future fic- Byakuya meets someone familiar.  
**Dedication:** Beck- look, I can write straight fic! And now, I'm studying again.  
**A/N: **This was supposed to be a drabble, but it ran away and became a ficlet instead, and so… I'm posting it as it's own fic. I don't know if I like it, exactly, because I'm not good at writing seriously when I'm procrastinating (which I'm doing, OMG final tomorrow), but for some reason I couldn't find my humor voice today. This is the result, I suppose. But yeah, I warn for fluff and sap and some angst that might be overbearing and make you want to roll your eyes. What a way to start off the existence of my new fic journal, eh? --;;  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine, though I wish constantly.  
**Distribution:** Just lemme know.

* * *

Maybe the worst part about it all is that everything is cyclical. Soul Society and the human world aren't as different as they'd like to think they are, and Byakuya, awkward in a gigai with a suit and tie, thinks that if death were simply death then maybe existing on either side of the two coins wouldn't be as painful as it is.

But he's here because there's something eternal about how the universe operates and he wants to blame Rukia and more directly, Ichigo, because he never would have felt the obligation to pay social visits to the mortal world had it not been out of some strange desire to continue watching over Rukia as he'd promised he would as well as a fondness for his nephews and niece such that he wanted them to know him, even if he was their strange dead uncle who only came once in a while to visit because he was often very busy like daddy was, fighting big ugly monsters.

That's the ultimate cause that led to today, after all. His nephew's sixth birthday two weeks ago meant Kuchiki Byakuya taking his much loathed gigai to Karakura for a visit. And as he hadn't had anything to do that afternoon while Rukia had bustled about like a military general in charge of a platoon that was preparing for an invasion of six-year-olds, he'd offered to go pick up Ichiro from school for her.

His life had become a mess after that.

He'd picked up Ichiro just like he'd planned on doing, but it was all downhill from there. He'd met the boy at the gate, and his nephew had been happy to see him, running up to his Byaku-ji and without any pretense, asking what present he'd brought him for his birthday. Byakuya had been on the verge of answering, save that the boy's first grade teacher, upon seeing that there was a strange man in a suit and tie to pick up one of her students, had marched over to him and demanded who he was.

And it wouldn't have been a problem, because Ichiro had recognized his uncle and could say as such, but his uncle had also recognized his nephew's fierce little sensei.

Sometimes he forgets that existence between the two worlds is cyclical, at least to a point, and that when one dies in Soul Society, more often than not, they return here. To be human.

And while the odds are slim, for a shinigami who often visits the mortal world, it is possible though unlikely, that he might run into someone he knows. Or once knew, as the case may be.

Her face is different, of course. Her eyes are bigger, her frame taller, her hair shorter. She's much livelier, and her voice, while friendly, doesn't sound like it will break at any moment. There are a lot of things about her that are vastly different. But there are some things that are the same, the types of things a doting husband will never forget about the one person who made life worth living. So when he meets this woman who Ichiro calls Takaya-sensei, and who he himself called something else a long time ago, he's so stunned he can't properly respond to her questions of whether he's a dirty old man or not.

Ichiro, not used to seeing his very proper Byaku-ji looking so confused, had quickly assured Takaya-sensei that while old, his uncle was very clean all the time and not dirty at all.

The walk home after that was very quiet, and Ichiro had broken the silence with that astonishing astuteness of his when he'd asked his uncle if he thought Takaya-sensei was pretty, because all the boys in the class thought so, and even if Byaku-ji was an old man, she might still be pretty to him too.

Byakuya had said that she was very pretty and didn't speak on it again after that.

Ichigo had given him a weird look earlier this morning, when he'd inexplicably shown up two weeks after that day, asking if he could attend Ichiro's student teacher conference alone today.

His brother-in-law had crossed his arms and asked if Byakuya was sick, wanting to go outside of the norm in his dealings with the human world, and when Byakuya had persisted uncharacteristically, Ichigo had conceded only because he thought it must be really important to Byakuya if the great Kuchiki-sama was letting his face show so much expression like he was for this.

Byakuya had been too grateful to punch him.

And now he's here in her classroom, feeling strange as he sits across from her in his suit and tie and she talks about how his nephew is a very smart boy though full of mischief, which sometimes gets him in quarrels with other boys.

He hangs on her every word and wonders how much it will hurt later if he asks her to dinner now.

He wonders if decades of loneliness and getting over her can really be so easily erased if she'll just say yes.

"Um… Takaya-san, I was wondering…"

"Yes?"

But then her phone rings and she blushes, excusing herself quickly. He agrees blankly, helpless to continue after being thrown off of his objective as suddenly as he was.

She picks up the phone and her eyes immediately light up.

He's never seen her look that way at him before. It makes his mouth go dry.

"Yes, I'll be home in time to take Ken-chan to practice, dear. Mmm… I'm in the middle of a conference right now, but I think we're almost done…aah, don't say those things! Go back to work!" she laughs, before hanging up.

Byakuya thinks that decades of loneliness and getting over her were far from enough to prepare him for this moment.

It's just like her to always go on ahead of him.

"Ah, I'm sorry about that. Was there something you were about to say, Kuchiki-san?" she asks, putting her phone away.

"Ah… no, nothing."

"Well then, let me give you the finger-paintings Ichiro did last week and we're done!"

"Yes, please."

He's her last conference of the day and so he walks her to the school entrance, absently fiddling with the stack of pictures his nephew drew. He thinks one of them might be a picture of him fighting with Ichigo. His brow furrows when he realizes that he's losing.

They part at the gate, but before they do she bows, telling him that it's nice to see a whole family so interested in a child's education, and says she hopes to see him again in the future. Then she pauses, and blushes slightly, rubbing at the back of her neck sheepishly. He asks her what the matter is, and she bows again, apologizing for the fourth or fifth time for calling him a dirty old man two weeks ago. She would treat him to dinner as a proper apology, but she has to get back to take her middle-school aged son to soccer practice since her husband is working later than usual tonight.

He tells her to think nothing of it, and they part ways.

He watches her go, and it might've be the most painful thing in the world if she hadn't looked so radiantly happy as she walks. So, oddly enough, he's not sad at all, though it does hurt a little. And he thinks that really the only reason it hurts at all is because he's happy that she's happy.

It's in the sparkle she has now that she never did when she was with him, and while that hurts, it's a beautiful thing to see for eyes that had been thirsting for such a thing for so long. And he thinks that today was all wrong of him, really, because even if existence is cyclical, not all circles are meant to intersect. He shouldn't have come here hoping for anything, because really, all he's learned is that once again, she's gone on ahead of him to a place where it's impossible for him to catch up.

But it's okay ultimately, because he's happy that she's happy.

Inexplicably, she stops a little way down the street and turns to look at him over her shoulder one last time. They catch each other's eyes for just a second, he awkward in his suit and tie as he hold's Ichiro's paintings, and she lovely and alive and stronger than he ever remembers seeing her.

She smiles at him then, and before he knows what he's doing, he feels himself smile back.

And then she's gone.

But he doesn't mourn this time. Because it isn't so bad to be left behind again, at least like this, because he got to see her so happy first. That brings a bittersweet joy into his fake human chest, because in all his years, he never thought he'd ever get to see her like that. Really like that.

He looks down the street after her, though her little form has already disappeared around one corner or another, off towards the life she's made here in this place.

She's left him behind again, but this time it's really okay.

Maybe, maybe he can catch her on the next go round.

**END**


End file.
